Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Day 276–Transition—Uptick

uptickMaybe it is just wishful thinking, but it seems that starting last Thursday there was a noticeable uptick in job activity in the areas  I search.  The number of job requisitions I go through each day has increased and the number of jobs that see that turn out to be of interest for applying has seemed to go up.

At the same time, my personal job hunting activity has gone up.  This week I have four interviews and I have 4 possibilities for positions in the works.  Three are shorter term contracts that could lead to longer term employment and one is a full time position.  This is the most activity that I have seen since I was laid off.

Each of these four has come about in a different way.  One was from an interview from December.  I wasn’t chosen, but my resume was passed on to someone else.  One came from a recruiter seeing my LinkedIn profile and then contacting me directly.  One is from some personal networking I had done with friend.  And the last is from a  job requisition that I put in near the end of the year.

The timing for hiring at Boeing usually comes after budgets are finalized and released.  This seems to happen towards the mid or end of February.  The Pace of Boeing jobs has remain constant since moving lower for the holidays around the end of November.  I’m wondering if other big companies have this same sort of beginning of the year delays.  If they do, then the next few weeks could see even more improvement in the jobs market.

This has combined to improve my outlook on the situation.  It was hard for me to remain upbeat at the end of 2010.  But the sun is out today, and the outlook seems bright.  Bright, not just for finding a job, but for finding a a position where I can bring all of my talents to bear in helping organizations, teams, and individuals become more productive and to expand their boundaries or concepts of themselves.  This is what I love to do and I do this as a organizational change management consultant and by helping in with continuous process improvement.   With this uptick, I’m seeing more of these positions, and with that an uptick in my personal emotional situation is taking place.

I hope the sun keeps shining!

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Remodel–Progress on the home front

I had gotten as far as I could.  The electrical, speaker, and internet wiring and the TV and HDMI Cabling were in the walls.  The ceiling lights had been installed.   The walls were caulked from the inside and new insulation install. 

For a more than a month we were in wait mode.  First hold up was the Holiday season.  Not wanting to have a big dusty mess while trying to get through the holidays.  Second hold up, the person that we had lined up for the job was at first busy on another job when we called and then fell down a flight of stairs and injured his elbow.  So we had to find another sheet rocker. 

Asking around we found a great crew.  While a little under the line of totally legit,  they could come in and whip it out in a week.  They did a great job and I was amazed at how fast they completed the work.  It was generally a crew of two and probably spent a total  of 3 1/2 days over a 5 day period.  This would have taken me months to do myself and in the end it would have looked like shit.

It looks great, a light texturing makes the taping invisible.  They could have done a little better job at protecting the new electrical plugs I put in, but this isn’t a big negative.  It looks so different than just a week ago, that it is surprising each time a wall into the basement.

See the latest pictures below:

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Day 268-Networking VI Remaining Active in my Network

A social network diagram
Image via Wikipedia
The human brain is a good analogy of  the relationship you have with your network.  We now know that at any part of your life you can form new brain synapses—new connections between information and emotions.  Somewhat like a muscle, if you do not use your brain, the unused synapses with wither and die—a pruning to reduce useless complexity.  If you abuse your body, or fail to keep it in shape it will have negative consequences on your brain.
You can at anytime, grow your network and add to it.  No surprise here.   We have always had networks of relationships in our lives.  And we have always had  tools to help us manage these relationships—tools like calendars, day timers, and the infamous little black address—tools that help us to remember things like the addresses, the names and ages of kids, and the anniversary of Jim down in accounting.  Studies should that those with a more active social network are happier and healthier.
I remember the expanding power when I could add all the birthdays I wanted into my Outlook calendar and I didn’t to fuss with them at the beginning of the year by transferring them to a new calendar.  This allowed me to track many more birthdays than I ever had before. Those times when I could say, “don’t you have a birthday coming up?” or “didn’t your son just turn 9?” made the little bit of effort to record dates well worth it.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Day 262 - Transition - Taking Stock

It is the beginning of the year.  For many years I have spent January reflecting on what has happened in the last year and what, if anything needs to change in my goals and behaviors going forward.  It is a time of taking stock and deciding what to focus on in the coming year.

I can’t believe this transition phase in my career has lasted as long as it has.  I was easily prepared to last 6 months, figuring that I would be able to find something in that time.  Even as I was planning this, I was hearing that the average time to find a job was taking 8 months.  Now I’m moving past this mark and not feeling good about it.

In order to last 6 months or more I decided to set my priorities as the following:

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Day 254–Transition -Keeping my Network Informed

A segment of a social network

Image via Wikipedia

This is the fifth part on the series on Networking.  In this post, I will share how I attempt to keep my network informed as to what is happening with me and where I need to the help of my network.

I have taken the track that I need to continually be adding Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...value for my network and then every once in a while focus on my situation.  There is a balancing act associated with this; otherwise, my network will stop paying attention.  It is hard to judge the affect my communications are having, though I do have a few concrete areas to watch.  Blogging has associated metrics on how many people visit the blog and how many pages a person looks at. Image representing LinkedIn as depicted in Cru... I can’t identify individual users by who they are, but I can see where they come from, how many pages our read, and some other information from which I can put together a bit of a profile of blog usefulness.   Blog comments also provide a window into what readers  are thinking, though I wished this was a more active form of feedback.   On Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Email, I can see the responses I get and use this as a gauge to the attention of my network,Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun... though this is a very incomplete metric.  I also receive quite a bit of direct feedback from people that I see them in person concerning things that I have posted.